Introducing WMC IDAR/E

The Women’s Media Center is proud to introduce IDAR/E as a new online channel where the original stories and commentary of progressive, feminist Latinx women are published 52 weeks a year, in both English and Spanish.

At IDAR/E, Latinx writers are discussing what media leave out when they tell the American story and asserting ourselves as the authorities on our experience. From Latinx women struggling with incarceration to leading movements for change in Chile, you will find it on IDAR/E.

Our writers are arming other Latinx women with information they can use to change our world. IDAR/E’s inspiration is the legendary journalist, activist and Tejana Jovita Idár.

More than a century ago, Idár denounced the lynching of Mexicans and Mexican Americans by the Texas Rangers and vigilantes. She wrote in La Cronica and El Progreso about educational and economic inequities, condemned racism and racial violence, and advocated for the rights of women.

In 1914, following the publication of an editorial in El Progreso criticizing US policy towards Mexico, the Rangers showed up at the paper’s office to shut it down. Jovita barred their entry. The Rangers returned the next day and destroyed the printing press with sledgehammers.

U.S. Army soldiers tried to silence Idár’s voice by wrecking the offices of El Progreso. Most official historians erased Idár by excluding her from narratives about this nation. These days, the silencing and omissions continue. Today’s Jovitas are largely absent from Sunday shows, newsrooms, cable networks, op-ed pages and online. Latinas formed just 1.76 percent of all newsroom leaders and 2.47 percent of all rank and file journalists in English-language print, according to the 2018 WMC report The Status of Women of Color in U.S. News Media.

Jovita symbolizes the atrevidaness evident in Latinas, from mothers migrating against all odds and persecution, to Latina Congress Members pulling back the veil on systemic injustices. If Jovita resonates with us, whether we are Dominicanas, Ecuatorianas or Panameñas, it’s because we recognize so many moments where we’ve had to take a stand, frequently at great peril to our jobs, careers, and even lives.

IDAR/E is shining a light on the untold U.S. experience; highlighting voices who are asking us to look beyond runaway headlines and trending hashtags; and supporting the Jovitas telling stories that survive, yes, even soldiers with sledgehammers.

Join us here,

Erica González Martínez,

Founding Editor

“The Women’s Media Center is proud to introduce IDAR/E as a new online channel where the original stories and commentary of progressive, feminist Latinx women are published 52 weeks a year, in both English and Spanish.”